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Minneapolis, MN 55407
P.O. Box 7588
Phone: (612) 722-6612
office@walkerchurch.org
Walter Lockhart, Pastor
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3104 16th Ave. S. Minneapolis, MN 55407 P.O. Box 7588 Phone: (612) 722-6612 office@walkerchurch.org Walter Lockhart, Pastor |
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Our
Mission: To Nurture Spirituality, Build Caring Community,and Work Courageously
for Peace with Justice and Mercy
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Approximate text of story told by David West during Celebration on Palm Sunday 2005 Happy World Storytelling Day. People all over the world are telling stories today, as they do everyday, if we’d just take time to listen. My goodness there is a lot of you out there today. I have to admit I’m a little scared and wish some of you had found a place in another circle this morning. This is a personal story combined with an old Cherokee story. So here it goes… Once upon a time a long time ago, back before we captured time and put it on our wrists, or nailed it to the wall, back in that time, there was a village, a community. And in this place everyone had their jobs and liked them. The people, who were in charge of leading worship, did a pretty good job of it. Those who were in charge of hunting, hunted. Those that gathered gathered. The ones who took care of the children did a good job of that. And the little people, who were supposed to learn and grow, learned and grew well. All was well in the village until one day a young man disappeared. No one thought much of it because young men were supposed to disappear now and then. And when later a young woman disappeared, those who gave it a second thought just figured that the young man and the young woman wanted some privacy to do what young men and young women like to do. But finally a small child disappeared and they knew the awful truth: there was a Windigo loose in their woods. Now a Windigo is a very dangerous monster. It’s immortal. It’s a shape shifter. Anybody could be a Windigo. You could be out walking in the woods and encounter an old man struggling to get a cup of water from a creek and because you’ve been taught to be kind to your elders you may offer to help this old man. But as soon as you look into the old man’s eyes you’ll notice he’s not human at all. Instead of eyes you’ll see two black holes and your will is no longer your own. The Windigo may tell you to find some wood and build a fire. That’s what my Windigo told me to do. I was just a kid away at Summer Camp. I was supposed to build a fire and keep it going all night long on an island in the middle of the lake with no one around. Then the Windigo may tell you to find a stick and sharpen it. And then the Windigo will spit you with that stick and roast you over the open fire and eat you. So having a Windigo loose in your woods is a real problem. Now my Windigo didn’t eat me, at least not literally. But sometimes I wished he had. He had me on this island, told me it was a rite of passage, that if I could complete this challenge it would mean something…I’d be a man. And so there I was, fighting sleep, stumbling around looking for wood, huddling by my fire alone with my thoughts when I heard the unmistakable sound of a canoe paddle in the water and then the sounds of a boat coming a shore. I knew who it was and what he wanted. He was the director of the camp and everyone knew he was a pervert-- to use the parlance of the day-- but no one had the guts to put a stop to it. I had the same reaction a lot of people in that circumstance have: I left my body and floated up into the tree tops and looked down while a huge gray man raped a scared little boy in the dying firelight. When it was over, he told me that if this ever happened again, all I would have to do is say no. In that moment his secret became my secret. I could no more have said no than he could have controlled himself. And I looked over at my fire and it was out. I didn’t tell anybody for ten years. I couldn’t. In my family, we didn’t talk about such things so I had no language, no vocabulary. In another bizarre way, I couldn’t tell the story because I knew it would hurt my parents, and I was a good boy who never hurt anybody. When I finally did tell the story it was to my Dad and it was not pretty. We were in a treatment facility for substance abuse at that time. I had to tell the story or use. I had to tell the story instead of acting out with women or pornography. I had to tell the story instead of eating a half pan of brownies. An amazing thing happened as I told the story: people believed me, loved me anyway, didn’t go away, and wanted to hear more. I got good at telling the story. A sort of resurrection was underway. One of the great things about storytelling is it always keeps changing. This story now has new ending. One of the things I knew I had to do while I was on this recovery journey was revisit the scene of the crime. 20 years had passed now. I went with my wife in search of I didn’t really know what. I had to ask directions because a child has no conception of how to drive somewhere. I remembered what lake it was on. As I talked to people the story of what had happened to the place and my Windigo began emerging and it was amazing how their words matched the messages I’d given myself over the years. You don’t want to go back there. You won’t even recognize the place. They should have castrated that guy. It’s private property now. You don’t want to go back there. So I finally found myself on the old camp road and I was too scared to drive down it. There was a huge sign saying No Trespassing. It seemed too big and attention grabbing to drive, so we walked in. This was nothing like Jesus, King of the Jews, riding triumphantly into Jerusalem on a donkey. This was more like me dragging my ass down a dusty old road. I sensed the place more than recognized it. There was an old cabin up the rise that grabbed my attention and then let it go. There were brand new summer homes all over the place. There was dock that looked original, weather-beaten, old, sad. And then I was wondering what in the hell I was doing here. What was the point? A car drove up. Oh no they’re gonna kick me outa here. It stopped. Out jumped this effervescent woman with a piercing gaze and said, “What are you doing here?” This of course was the question. A friend once told me that a coincidence is nothing but a miracle in which God chooses to remain anonymous. This woman was the first girl I’d ever kissed. My two earliest sexual experiences had happened right here on this ground, one normal and the other more normal than you want to believe. I believe she was sent by God to guide me through this. Until that very moment I didn’t believe in that kind of spiritual experience. I had accepted a higher power because you had to in order to recover, but that was just a bunch of guys who knew what they were talking about when it came to drugs and alcohol. They were a higher power in the sense that many brains were better than one. As far as some kind of cosmic intelligence, or force, or will, or Great Mysterious, I had my doubts. When I heard people talk of such experiences I got very uncomfortable, as I’m sure there are a few right now listening to me are. But her arrival could not be explained away as a coincidence. I followed her up the hill to the cabin. There was a sign on the door saying Keep Out. She kicked it in. Inside was all that remained of our summer camp. There were life jackets with the stuffing coming out, Duluth packs chewed through by rodents, bent and broken canoe yolks and on the wall, emblazoned with all our names, dozens of canoe paddles. This was the Wintering House. I knew this place. I was molested here too. We walked around looking, Liz chattering and souvenir hunting. And I found it. The paddle said August 1969. And there was my name. In all the times I’d told the story I could never remember how old I was. And now the whole summer came back to me in a flood of memory. I remember the smell of smoke in my clothes. The way the lake looks when the sun shines on it, like a field of diamonds, the sound the wind makes when it blows through the white pines. The feel of wet Keds on your feet for two weeks straight. I was 13. I felt resurrected. I finally found the courage to ask my parents what they were thinking in sending a child to the camp of a whispered well known pervert, why they didn’t believe what everybody was gossiping and my mom gave me the only answer that makes any sense, a brave answer, an honest answer: we didn’t believe because we didn’t want to believe. My story had a new ending. So yes Windigos will never die, and they’re extremely dangerous and the elders had to get together and talk and smoke and come up with a plan. They knew that the Windigo was preying on them when they were separated from the tribe and so they decided to all stick together. They dug a huge hole and at the bottom put birch bark and dry grasses and over the top branches and moss and earth to make it look like the forest floor. They lit a fire and brought food and drink and everybody came to wait. They sang and told stories and waited. They ate and drank and waited. They slept and waited. Finally they heard him deep in the woods…breathing. Closer and closer he came. Children climbed into mothers’ laps. Men’s arms encircled their families. All eyes were focused on the fire. They knew they couldn’t afford to look into the Windigo’s eyes. He was in the camp, walking amongst them. They could sense his presence, feel his breath on their necks. And then he fell into their trap. Immediately the whole village acted as one. Someone shoved the fire into the pit and the birch bark and grasses exploded into a blazing inferno. The Windigo screamed, “You can’t kill me” and scrambled to crawl out of the conflagration. Every time he was close though, somebody’d throw another huge log and knock him back in. The heat and stench were incredible. People’s hair singed and their fingernails melted and yet they kept working. And all the while the Windigo screamed, “You will never kill me!” He kept screaming until his anguish turned into a high whine. Finally, the enormous fire collapsed in on itself and a huge plume of smoke, ashes, and sparks shot into the air. And each ash, each ember, each spark turned into a mosquito… So that now the Windigo doesn’t eat us all at once, but just one bite at a time. Some stories are told for the health and well being of the teller. Some are told for the health, education, and entertainment of the listener. Some are told for the glory of God. Most are told for all three, as I hope this one was. Happy World Storytelling Day. |
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